Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021: FAO launches action plan 2021–2025

What is the News?

​​The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has launched its Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) 2021–2025.

About Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) 2021–2025

The FAO Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance 2021-2025 is the continuation of the first FAO Action Plan, which covered the period 2016-2020.

Key Objectives of the plan

The five key objectives of the plan are: 

• Increasing stakeholder awareness and engagement
• Strengthening surveillance and research
• Enabling good practices
• Promoting responsible use of antimicrobials
• Strengthening governance and allocating resources sustainably

Key Features of the plan

Firstly, it takes a ‘One Health’ approach and outlines several possible improvements in agricultural practices to better control Antimicrobial Resistance(AMR) from good nutrition for people and animals, vaccination, hygiene, sanitation and genetics among other areas.

Secondly, it calls for more AMR-related research and surveillance in the crop, aquaculture and environmental sectors. This is because antimicrobials discharged by humans and animals, as well as hospitals and slaughterhouses, can enter the environment and accelerate the emergence as well as the spread of resistant strains and genes.

What are antimicrobials?

Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.

What is antimicrobial resistance?

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. 

As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

Source: This post is based on the article “Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021: FAO launches action plan 2021–2025” published in Down To Earth on 23rd Nov 2021.